


become unto gods

by 10redplums



Series: dragons campaign [8]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, canon-typical weird relationships with godhood, canon-typical weird relationships with power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10redplums/pseuds/10redplums
Summary: Cleric/Paladin bonding over access to immense divine power, before the penultimate set of fights. (Armand has a crisis over being able to wield level 7-8-9 spells)
Relationships: player character/npc
Series: dragons campaign [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018047
Kudos: 1
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	become unto gods

**Author's Note:**

> the word “love” appears four times; the first refers to philia, the second to storge/agape, the third again to agape, and the fourth to eros/philia. I wanted to differentiate between Isteval’s “we have our love” which refers mostly to “humanitarian” things i know it’s not just humans in this world don’t @ me i don’t know what else to put here it’s 11:30 PM 11/8 i got hit by shower writing and desperately hammered this out. Anyway Isteval’s “we have our love” referring to people in general and Armand’s “two men in love” referring to the two men in love.

_ “Are you busy tonight? May I visit? I’d like to talk. You can refuse; the weight of these revelations I wouldn’t force you to bear.”  _

_ “Armand? I’m free, I’m free. Of course you can come over.” _

It had been a terrible thing to grow up and realize he was more powerful than his mother, but it hadn’t… hurt. It hadn’t hurt the way he’d realized he was. Changed. By his experiences.

And he didn’t know who to talk to about it. Chiara had the tools for dealing with, it seemed, any problem, but even she hadn’t understood. 

Those touched by the gods knew abstractly the havoc they could wreak if only their bodies could handle channeling the power of a god. Butler knew, sort of. Nobody really expected… Armand could call fire from the heavens. Armand could level a small city. 

Armand could bring someone back from a century of death. The thought made him physically ill, but. 

They were all taught to respect the peace of the grave. It was sacred. To violate it was grotesque. Everyone thought it was so easy. Oh, I’d never bring anyone back from the dead! I’d never trap a soul on the material plane to do my selfish bidding! But nobody ever expected to hold the power to carry that out. Oh, there’d be swift retribution, of course, but he’d have done it. He could challenge the edicts of the Lonely Mother with her own power. The thought of it chilled him to the bone. 

The thought of the Lonely Mother herself bending her own rules, to allow someone like  _ him _ …

The journey of falling in love with Isteval had been a common one in many respects. He’d placed the man up on a pedestal. Lathander had crumbled that pedestal for Armand in the process of returning him to that pedestal for many other people. Armand had been free to see him as a person.

It had been… odd. 

But here they are, two people plunged into the interminable oceans of a god’s love, across each other in Isteval’s sitting room. Isteval is in a dressing gown; Armand has at least changed into the armor that isn’t soaked in his own blood.

Isteval listens patiently as Armand stumbles his way through the ridiculous events of the day. Facing down a dragon- and he’s very impressed. He’s- he grabs Armand’s hands and begs him to come back when Armand says they have to fight four more ancient dragons. And then a demonic demigod. 

He can’t bring himself to smile at Isteval to reassure him. It’s… It doesn’t seem real. In his heart he’ll always be the boy of sixteen, standing on the balcony and tasting divinity like the brush of the night air on his skin.

But he’s not here to make Isteval worry. He squeezes Isteval’s hands in his and he promises to do his best.

He sits closer, thigh pressing against Isteval’s thigh, and plays with their interlinked fingers. 

“If you were offered the power of a god,” Armand says, “not just the way we already do. But…”

“It’s tempting,” Isteval says, “I won’t lie. But you know where my arrogance took me.” Armand hums in response and squeezes his hand again. 

The fighter and the ranger who’d contracted them at the start of this whole adventure had a whole history with the demon waiting for them at the end of the dragons.  _ They _ hadn’t turned down power.  _ They _ had made themselves into demigods. The work would have been impossible without them, but… The demon…

Armand sighs again and leans back. There was a point to this.

“We’re going to kill a demigod, Isteval,” Armand says, resting his head on Isteval’s waiting, steadying shoulder. “And then we’re going to kill a dragon akin to a god. And then we’re going to spend the rest of our lives rebuilding. Who else can say as much? Who can say they’ve held such power?

“How did you live with yourself after slaying that first dragon?”

Isteval presses a kiss to the top of his head. 

“You know I didn’t,” he says. “The first victories were glorious, and I felt unstoppable. And then I had nobody to ground me, and nobody to hold myself against. The power was amazing.” Isteval sighs. “We have our love. You’re right. What comes after the battles is rebuilding, and healing.”

“We process our grief.” Isteval laughs softly and musses Armand’s hair.

“Yes. It’s the work after that keeps us grounded, I think,” he says. Armand wonders if the gods are lonely. Isteval reaches down to hold Armand’s hand again, his thumb rubbing the backs of Armand’s fingers. “I have Daggerford, and you have the church of the Lonely Mother. And… you’re you. I know you’ll be okay.”

“Shining praise from Sir Isteval, hero, dragonslayer, champion,” Armand says, voice carefully dry, and Isteval laughs hard.

“Yes, yes. But you know I’m better than I was,” he says. He is. “And I know you. When this is all over I could bet good money you’ll go right back to digging graves.” 

There will be so many graves to dig.

“I could take that bet,” Armand says, laughing. “Do you know how much money we found in White Doom’s lair?” 

“You give it all to charity!” False, Armand keeps some to buy necessary supplies, but he will give Isteval this.

Tomorrow they will fight the second of five ancient dragons, alongside the inimitable Ranger Mer. Tonight… Armand lets himself pretend. Pretend they’re two ordinary men in love. There’s no demonic demigod, no looming threat of the dragon queen. The gods are in their heavens.


End file.
